A26892:2114
A Christian Directory
A Christian directory, or, A sum of practical theology and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortify every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.A Christian directory, or, A summ of practical theologie and cases of conscience directing Christians how to use their knowledge and faith, how to improve all helps and means, and to perform all duties, how to overcome temptations, and to escape or mortifie every sin : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Robert White for Nevill Simmons, 1673
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§. 3. And that the name [flesh] doth primarily signify the sensitive appetite it self, is evident in the very notation of the name. Why else should the Habits or Vices of the Rational powers be called [Flesh] any more than [Spirit] or any thing else? If it were only in respect of their object, they should be called [the World] also, because that is their object: It is a certain Rule, that That faculty is most predominant in man, whose Object is made his chiefest End. Sensitive delights being made the felicity and end of the unsanctified, it followeth that the sensitive faculties are predominant; which being called Flesh, (by a nearer Trope) the Mind from it receives the denomination. The Scriptures also show this plainly: I remember not any one place in the Old Testament where there is any probability that the word [flesh] should signify only the Rational soul as unrenewed: Matth. 16. 17. Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee: that is, mortal man hath not revealed it. Matth. 26. 41. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: that is, your Bodies are weak, and resist the willingness of your souls: For sinful habits are not here called weak. John 3. 6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh: that is, Man by natural Generation can beget but natural man, called Flesh from the visible part; and not the spiritual life which nature is now destitute of. Rom 7. 25. With my flesh I serve the Law of sin; that is, with my sensitive powers, and my mind so far as captivated thereto: Rom. 8. 1, 5. Flesh and Spirit are oft opposed: They that are of the flesh mind the things of the flesh, &c. that is, They in whom the sensitive interest and appetite are predominant: For it is called the Body here, as well as the flesh, v. 10, 11, 13. The mind is here included; but it is as serving the flesh and its interest, Gal. 5. 16, 17, 19. Flesh and Spirit are in the same manner opposed. And 2 Pet. 2. 18. the Lusts of the flesh are in this sense mentioned: And Ephes. 2. 3